fuel level sensor

Hi all. I'm just wondering if anyone has an Idea how the low fuel level sensor on our bikes work? - its a 1982 Kaw KZ 650.

The bike itself is fine - but I'm actually trying to figure out a better (cheaper) way to detect low oil LEVEL in large medium speed two-stroke marine diesel engines (I'm interning at Electro-motive diesel www.emdiesels.com )

There is a lot of crap out there to monitor low fluid level, but none so elegant and simple as the one that is installed on the later Z's.

Right now we cut a hole in the oil pan, weld in a huge metal tube, and then install a float sensor (its like your toilet bowl float, only in a vertical arrangement) over that.

Moderators - if you want to put this in chit chat I understand

P.S. - I am not attempting to reverse engineer and I'm not going to be violating any patents

Post edited by: newbikekiller, at: 2007/06/18 10:48

I am a fox at this one. Think of using a magnet or using electrical resistance. I can't tell you more since my mind is full of genius ideas. Went to school to do diesel technology, to fix trucks.

It's not immediately apparent to me how a magnet would help.

Actually most old school fuel gauges work by having a mechanical device (float) run up over an electrical strip thereby changing its resistance. Doesn't help much though because thats comparing apples to apples with what we already got .

Use a magenet as your sensor. The magnet is on the lowering and rising object on your guage and as it passes certain points it opens a circuit which lowers your needle to a electromagnetic point on your meter, Ya get me? You have to think more, and stop having me do your homework!

Yep.

But the ones on our bikes have no moving parts and are so cute and tiny and easy to install!

Thats what I'm really interested in. I may just have to do some investigating with some of the electrical engineers around here to come up with our own device. Right now I was looking to buy one from somewhere else :whistle: we'll see. I've seen around 200 vendor's stuff and I'm at the end of my rope trying to find an elegant solution to this. I should have looked at KZ's first!

I'll let you guys know exactly what I find out... maybe it will help ya'll if your sensor is bad or if you want to redesign it (possibly a real gauge instead of just a low-level alarm).

My guess is that the fuel sensor on the bike is simply measuring the difference of resistance between fuel and air. I don't have any first hand knowledge of that, and mine quite anyway a couple of years ago. I wouldn't mind figuring out some way to fix it, though.

Can't help but do a bump here. I'll bet someone knows for sure how this works... Any takers?

You lost me when you were about to cut the hole in your oil pan to install the fuel level sensor... What is a fuel level sensor? Is it connected to a gauge?

Why not just use a scale and weigh the mass above it. Or use some type of barometric pressure. As the gas tank gets full, weight/barometric pressure increases.

We are probably going with something like this

www.gemssensors.com/content.aspx?id=1144

Optical, cheap (as this goes, its still >$100) , and small. You could probably use this on a Z if you were so inclined to replace the stock unit.

I still have NO IDEA how the KZ ones work.